Where did LeBron James learn to handle hostility? High school

Before Thursday’s road playoff opener in Philadelphia, LeBron James said nothing about the unfriendly environment would overwhelm him, not after encountering so many playoff-like atmospheres during the regular season.

“There shouldn’t be any surprises,” James said.

In truth, James learned to deal with rough crowds more than a decade ago.

During an interview earlier this month, James laughed when asked if what he had faced in 2010-11 reminded him of the reaction to an earlier decision, back in Akron.

“It’s been similar, very similar,” James said. “That’s why I was able to handle the situation. You know, it’s a different height, it’s a different level when you talk about media and everyone put into it, but at the same time, it’s still the same situation. I was an eighth grade kid from a predominantly black neighborhood, and I had to choose between going to a black public school or going to an all-white Catholic high school.”

That was a choice between Buchtel or St. Vincent St. Mary.

“And I chose (SVSM) for the better of my friends,” James said. “We chose to go to a predominantly white Catholic high school because we wanted to stay together.”

Especially after one of those friends (and the son of his AAU coach) Dru Joyce III didn’t feel as if Buchtel truly wanted him.

“Exactly,” James said. “So now I decided to come to (Miami) to be with my friends and to a great organization and, you know, got some of the same backlash I did when I chose to go to the high school. So I’ve been in a lot of the same situations.”